This file contains some possible things to do in future versions of xfig.
------------------
FORMAT 4.0 example
------------------
#FIG 4.0
Res 1200/500 (use 1200 for inches, 500 for metric)
Bounds 300 500 3045 9302 (optional bounding box from figure compound)
Orient Landscape
Units Metric
Uscale 3cm=1ft (screen ruler scale)
Pjust Center (page justification)
Psize A4
Pmag .9 (print/export magnification)
Pages Multiple
Smag .4 (screen magnification [zoom])
Backg ivory (canvas background color which is used by fig2dev too)
GIFTransp None (GIF transparent color)
JPGQual 75 (JPEG quality)
Margin 15 (number of pixels for margin for bitmap export)
UCol 35 #440033 (User colors)
Line ... (PolyLine separate from Box and Polygon)
Box (three subtypes)
Box-Arcbox ...
Box-Normal ...
Box-Picture ...
Poly ...
Spline ...
Arc (three subtypes)
Arc-Open ...
Arc-Pie-Wedge ...
Arc-Elliptical ...
Text ...
Ellipse ...
Layer FirstFloor 10 (number is drawing order or depth)
....
ENDLayer FirstFloor
Compound ...
...
ENDCompound
********* NOTES about FORMAT 4.0 *********
Change line thickness to float for finer precision
Separate dash/dot length from the gap
New arrowhead type ----<> diamond point for UML diagrams
Allow different arrow head tips (miter, round, bevel)
*** Be sure to save arrowhead width and height "as is" instead
of multiplying them by 15.0 in f_save.c ***
Enhance pattern fill allow "transparent" fill so that only the pattern lines
fill the shape, not the background color.
Enhance all objects to have cap_style type for dotted lines
Allow selecting linecap type for dotted lines for closed splines, boxes
and ellipses
Rotatable boxes - store width, height, upper-left corner and angle only
Background color for text (or "None") to allow background (ala XDrawImageString)
Note: need to add flag/call to text rotation code to do this
Honor fractional text sizes (float). Currently, xfig reads the size as float
but converts to integer internally.
No need for duplicating first point at end for polygon in file itself
Use PIX_PER_CM = 500 instead of 450 (w_setup.h)
Need to rescale older (3.2.0 and older) metric figures by difference
Add canvas background color to Fig file
add option to specify default color in fig2dev
Add elliptical arcs
Importing of Fig files as pictures
Add new font choices done by Ian Cameron Smith (clint@hermit.org http://www.hermit.org/)
Some kind of color pallette which is global (remains around between drawings)
o Also library of color pallettes?
*** END OF V4.0 IDEAS ***
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The following items would require a change to the Fig file protocol:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Allow multiple pages of figures
Store page size with file
Super/subscripts for text objects
Text blocks in text frame
Composite objects (ala PostScript) that can be filled if wanted
e.g. polyline joined with arc and filled:
_______
(_______)
Text that is connected to objects which appears in popup near object
e.g. to have extra information about an object, like "this is
my mother at age 5" in a family tree figure
----------------------------------------------------------
The following DON'T require a change to the file protocol:
----------------------------------------------------------
"File watch" feature so that xfig will re-read figure file when time-stamp
changes (file has been updated by external program). Probably should
add "end of file" marker so we know when it is complete.
Have "static objects" which aren't erased when new figure is loaded. This way
you can have a template into which figures may be merged.
"Slide show" feature by hitting Alt-N to load next .fig file in the current
directory. Also, say Tab in file menu would go to the next file
in the directory, loading that filename into the Filename slot.
Credit Alec Muffett (Alec.Muffett@UK.Sun.COM) for the idea.
Option for grid to be constant screen-size (independent of zooming)
Allow picking of points that aren't on the positioning grid
Recursively uncompound objects with one click
Automatic pan of canvas when drawing at an edge.
Possibly use already allocated colors when importing GIF/XPM figures
(e.g. black, red, etc)
Re-render imported EPS files (using gs) at new resolution when zooming LARGER
Moving object when point_posn mode is on should first move object to closest
positioning grid position then allow movement from there.
Look in ../AppPlusS/XCC.c for code to allocate colors using any
valid visual/depth/colormap.
Mode to rotate objects using only the mouse (requires new mode button)
Make it smart about duplicate PICs:
o Same PICs on canvas use same bitmap[]
(each has its own pixmap in case different rotation, size etc)
o Thus, they all share the same colors
Create resource for "print" command (e.g. lp, lpr, whatever) which uses meta-
notation to place filename (e.g. print_command: "lpr -P%p %f" where %p
is the printer string and %f is the filename)
Allow option of vertically centering text either using the ascenders/descenders
(the current method) or not
Allow vertically-aligned text
"top" would mean the insertion point specifies the line over the top of the
text
"middle" would mean that it specifies the midline of the text (I'm not
sure how this is defined, perhaps the average of top and base
or top and bottom.
"base" would mean the line under all letters which do not hang down.
For example, g and j extend below the baseline.
"bottom" would mean the time under the bottom of the text including
descenders.
Have common edit popup for all four splines to allow conversion between all
Save modified_flag before file operations and restore if undo used
Change eps_bitmaps so that background is transparent; i.e. stipple
Extend smart links to work for SCALE, MOVEPT and perhaps EDIT, UPDATE.
Could also extend them to work for arc-type links and for
ellipse/circle objects and objects inside compound objects.
Also, at the moment smart-links
only work for one end of a link if both ends of the link
happen to touch the object being operated on. To fix this would
require changing the F_linkinfo structure to have left_endpt,
left_prevpt, right_endpt, right_prevpt fields instead of the current
endpt, prevpt and two_pts fields.
Make arcs use pw_curve to speed them up.
Add bounding box to every F_object definition, useful for:
1) faster drawing of rubber objects
2) handling the selective redrawing of figures better after they become
the innocent victim during an expose or erasure of another object
Generalize align mode (like glue mode) to allow arbitrary tagged objects to be
aligned rather than just compounds.
Make a raise/lower depth feature:
the raise_ic icon is already in w_icons.c
Allow direct modification of the tension of a X-spline point from the Edit
Object window, or at least, allow to copy the tension value from
one point to another.
A 'gravity' mode whereby points placed by aiming and clicking are brought not
to the closest fiducial point of a figure, but to the closest continuous
point on the figure (applies only to circles, arcs and straight lines),
taking into account constraints of angle (like manhattan constraint).
Example 1: I click near the circumference of a circle. The point is
placed exactly on the circumference, closest to where I clicked.
This is very useful for getting lines to touch circles exactly in points
other than the E, W, S, or N extreme. Example 2: I am in manhattan
constraint, and I click near a random-slope line. The point is placed
on the line in the one place consistent with the manhattan constraint.
Clean up array-place copy:
If y copies is set to 0, then xfig treats the x direction as the direction
of the copies.
If both are non-zero, the x and y are e-w and n-s, but the number of copies
can be fewer than x*y if the first copy is in a strange place.
If only y is set, it is like x, but the first copy (when y is 2) is not
drawn properly.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------- note about restructuring xfig data structures ---------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
What really needs to be done is a major rework of the list structures used
to store xfig objects. Here are some comments involving the change.
The consequences to the current implementation of converting totally to this
scheme are non-trivial. Instead of having separate lists for each object
type, you need to have a single list which has a union of all the different
objects as its type. This will require changes in many places in the code.
At the moment there are many places where each of the lists are traversed
separately. In many cases the code can be simplified dramatically if there
was only a single list. For example, to perform a move on an object there
are separate routines (one for each object type) to start/cancel/place the
object. You could replace this by a single routine for start/cancel and
place which worked no matter what type you had. (Who says you can't use
object-orientation in C :-)). Another advantage is that the current caching
scheme for redrawing would no longer be needed (i.e. redrawing would be
greatly simplified). Also undo would become simpler (I think).
If we want to make a smooth transition from the current scheme to the
one described above (and I do), here is how I propose we do it:
We need to change every direct access to the current lists to use functions.
i.e. something like
for (a=objects.arc; a!=NULL; a=a->next) ...
to be something like
for (a=first_arc(); a!=NULL; a=next_arc(a)) ...
At the moment these routines would be simple to implement.
Once all occurrences had been changed, it would simply be a matter
of changing the underlying list structure and changing the first_arc,
next_arc routines. Then as we had time we could replace whichever
sets of six loops by a single loop which did
for (o=first_obj(); o!=NULL; o=next_obj(o)) ...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------- end of note about restructuring xfig data structures -------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
